The wonderment is already out there: What scenes in “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” were genuine, and which were staged? Some parts are pretty easy to figure out that Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Azamat (Ken Davitian) are acting to keep the story moving along to keep up with the end plot of the movie (that being Borat wanting to take the virginity away from Pamela Anderson), but for the most part “Borat” ends up being a bizarre look at bigotry, racism objectification of women, political correctness, political incorrectness, and, oh hell, society in general. Pretty much like Sacha Baron Cohen has been doing with his HBO series for a few years now. Here’s the basic run-down…

Borat is supposed to be a television commentator in Kazakhstan. We are introduced to his village where everyone hates his neighbor, his sister (whom he makes out with) is proud of being a great prostitute, and his wife threatens that if Borat cheats on her she will chop off his cock. In any case he has been charged with filming a documentary in the United States to see how life here can help the people of Kazakhstan. At first Borat is just supposed to hang around New York City and interview people, but he also keeps living like he did in the old country, I guess, as he washes his clothes in Central Park, takes a dump in an inappropriate location, and jerks off in front of store windows, in full view of the public. Then, in his hotel room, he is watching a rerun of “Baywatch” and falls in love with C.J. (and who wouldn’t). He learns C.J. is actually Pamela Anderson, and Borat decides to take his documentary cross-country on the quest for his true love.

Along the way Borat continues his documentary, finding himself at a Gay-Pride Parade, a religious revival, a rodeo, a high-society dinner, in a camper with fraternity dudes, and a host of other locations where Borat can show people at their best, and at their worst. And you would think it wouldn’t be easy for Borat to show people at their worst, but for this film it’s almost like shooting fish in a barrel as people tend to show their attitudes about race, women, foreigners, and the right for a man to buy a gun to shoot a Jew if he wants to. And, oh yea, there’s also some nude wrestling, but not the kind I was looking for.

I really don’t want to give too much away about this movie only saying that it has the potential to offend the shit out of you, especially the beat-down Jewish people get, but I suppose everyone gets their share of bashing in this movie, and it’s especially seen in the prejudice of many of the people Borat interviews along the way. But somehow Borat is able to help you see the prejudices, how ludicrous they are, and it made me laugh.

I would like to think the entire film only had two people acting in it, those being Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat and Ken Davitian as Azamat. IMDB also lists comedian Luenell, and has Pamela Anderson as uncredited, which does make sense in the grand scheme of the movie. What is sort of scary is the rest of the grand scheme of the movie and the fact that the rest of the folks on screen either A: Signed away a release of their actions without reading exactly where it was being used, or worse B: Signed away a release of their actions knowing exactly where it was being used (although I could see the college fraternity kids signing away their rights in either case). For me, though, the movie is funny as hell, as well as a little sad, but I’ll tell you what, if some stranger approached me on the street trying to kiss me on the cheeks, I would probably run away from him as well, no matter if his intention was just to say “Hello.”

If the thought of a movie having a scene called “The Running of the Jew” appalls you so much that seeing it during a film would have you walk out, well, you might want to save your money and not see “Borat” because, well, you’ll only see about 5 minutes of the movie. But if anything in the trailer for the film made you laugh my guess is you already understand the humor in the movie, and let me assure you, the trailer doesn’t even show the best parts. It’s 4 ½ stars out of 5 for “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” It would have been 5 stars except as funny as the nude scene was, it didn’t involve Pamela Anderson.